299 Days: The Collapse 2d-2

by Glen Tate

  He slowly made his way to the county road. He had forgotten how long it took to go a few hundred yards when trying to be quiet. There was not a sound or sign of life from any of the cabins so far. Good. The place was probably abandoned, except for the Colsons and Morrells. He wouldn’t wake them up. They might shoot him by mistake. Let them sleep. He’d go over in the morning. He would need a story to tell them about why he was here without Lisa and the kids. He started to work on one while he moved slowly down the county road. He wasn’t coming up with a good one.

  Grant got to the end of the county road where the gravel road to his cabin began. He saw his cabin. It was dark and empty. He didn’t need to move as cautiously now. He was almost there.

  He walked up to the cabin and onto the deck to the front door. He let his AR hang on his chest sling, got his keys out, and slowly opened the door. He walked in. The kitchen light was on and it partially lit up the cabin. Grant thought he’d turned that light off when he left last time.

  Who the hell was that?

  There was a man with a pistol pointed at Grant’s head. Grant could see the shape of the man and the gun, but not the man’s face.

  He knew he was captured at this point. He didn’t want to be tortured. It was time to die. Grant clicked off the safety of his AR and started to shoulder it at the man.

  “Nope, partner,” the man said quickly and waved his pistol from side to side. “Not tonight.”

  Grant knew that voice. Could it be?

  It was Chip. What the hell was he doing here and how did he get in?

  Grant was frozen with this AR halfway up to his shoulder. He didn’t want to shoot Chip, if that’s really who was in his cabin.

  “That you, Chip?” Grant whispered.

  “Yep,” Chip said, still holding a pistol to Grant’s head. “How are you Mr. Matson? Why don’t you lower that rifle so there’s no friendly fire here tonight?”

  That was definitely Chip’s voice.

  Grant lowered his AR and clicked the safety back on. He let the rifle go, but it was on a sling so it just dangled. Grant instinctively put his hands out to his sides.

  “Where’s the damned light in here?” Chip asked.

  “Behind you is a lamp,” Grant said.

  After some fumbling, Chip turned it on.

  There he was. Chip and his .45. In Grant’s cabin.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Grant asked.

  “Storing some valuables,” Chip said, wondering why Grant didn’t know the answer already. “Just like we talked about when I was out here this summer. You remember, don’t you? I mean, it’s cool for me to leave some hardware here, right?”

  Grant thought about it. Of course. Chip was stashing the guns here. Great.

  “Oh, yeah,” Grant said. It took him a little while to recover from the shock of a man in is darkened cabin pointing a pistol at his head. “Sure, it’s cool,” he finally said. “I was just a little surprised by the whole guy-in-my-house-pointing-a-gun-at-me thing. How are you and what can I do to help?”

  Chip smiled. “All the hard work is done. I pulled in after dark, after we hauled my load from the store. I came straight here. Sorry for telling you and the other guys that I was going somewhere no one knew of. This shit is worth some money and…well, anyway, your neighbors weren’t around so I unloaded this stuff in the dark. I got in with the key under the rock on the bulkhead. You know, the one you showed me. I moved my truck and the empty U-Haul to a spot no one would see about a half mile away. I didn’t need an empty U-Haul sitting at your place. Tends to lead to questions we don’t need.”

  Chip sat down on one of the two couches in the living room of the cabin and continued. “Right after I walked back from my parking spot, I was getting ready to try to sleep and I heard you coming in. You didn’t exactly sneak quietly up on me. I figured it was you because you probably were the only one with a key. I had the bulkhead rock key with me so I knew it wasn’t someone else who knew about that key. But I didn’t want to be wrong so I had to draw on you. Sorry about that, but I’m sure you understand.”

  “Yep,” Grant said. “I woulda done the same.”

  “So what brings you out here without the family?”

  Grant felt a sting go through him. He didn’t want to answer that question. He was ashamed that he’d abandoned his family. “It’s a long story and I’d rather not talk about it. Let’s just say that this place will be my…” Grant pointed at Chip and said, “… our home for a while. I guess we’re both hiding out.”

  “From what?” Chip asked. “The riots?”

  “Well, I kinda shot a dude,” Grant said with a laugh. A nervous, tension-breaking laugh. “Three, actually. Wounded some more. Looters. In my neighborhood. They were coming after me and my friend with rifles and clubs. About a dozen of them. I got the surviving ones to run away. I tried to get my family to come out, but my wife is living in a fantasy world of ‘everything is normal and just fine.’”

  Chip just thought for a while. “Sucks to not have your family, huh?”

  Grant realized that he and Chip were in the same boat. No family. Grant didn’t like that thought. But it was true.

  “For a while,” Grant said. “I will go get them or they’ll come out. I hope.” Grant just stared for a while.

  It was silent in the cabin. Just then the soft sound of the refrigerator kicked on in the background.

  “Well,” Chip finally said, “now that there’s two of us, we can have a guard duty schedule. Let me go show you the stuff in the basement and you can show me the locks you have and how to secure this place.”

  Chip put his shoes on and pointed out the door. He wanted to get this done and get some sleep. He was tired. He had been up all night. And, at almost sixty, his ability to pull all-nighters was waning.

  “Let’s go have a look,” Grant said.

  Chip was the first out the door and he carefully looked around before going outside. So did Grant. They tiptoed down the incline to the unfinished basement. Grant got his keys out and opened the door. He turned on the lights.

  There in his basement were some of the tubs and gun boxes he had seen at the store. Neatly stacked. Cases of ammo stacked and sorted by caliber. Nice.

  “Where’s Ted and his load?” Grant asked.

  Chip looked around and lowered his voice, which was weird because they were all alone in the basement. “Ted is, um, talking to some people.” Chip was smiling. “That’s all I can tell you. Let’s just say there is some serious shit going down now. Very serious.”

  Oh. Grant had an idea what that might be but kept the thought to himself. No need to speculate and blabber. That was not very professional.

  “Professional?” Grant thought to himself. What profession was Grant now in? A gun runner? Harboring a fugitive? Oh, wait, he was a fugitive himself from the shootings. He and Chip were officially outlaws now. Wow. From respected attorney to outlaw in a couple of hours. Things were changing, and they could never go back to normal. This was the second Grant; the new and different Grant. He was an entirely different person.

  Grant and Chip talked about all the stuff in the basement. Chip had a clipboard and looked at his handwritten inventory sheet.

  “Let’s see,” he said, putting on his reading glasses that he kept in the front pocket of his t-shirt. Chip always wore a t-shirt with a front pocket. Tonight he was wearing his usual gray t-shirt with the logo of Capitol City Guns on the front pocket.

  “I have twenty-nine ARs and two tubs of various parts,” Chip said. “I probably have enough parts to make two or three more; I think I only have that many barrels. I have most of my AR tools here. I have about 250 AR mags. Some red-dot sights—some Aimpoints and EOs, and some cheap Chinese knockoffs—and some mounts for putting them on carry handles. Some attachable iron sights. A couple of AKs and a handful of mags and parts.” Chip never liked the AK. Ever since Vietnam he didn’t like those things. He respected their durability, but he just didn’t like them.
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br />   He pointed at the stacks of ammo cases. “I have twelve cases of 5.56. Six cases of 9mm and three of .40. One case of 7.62 x 39 and some miscellaneous shit.” Chip smiled, obviously proud of the haul. “That about does it.” His smile got bigger when he said that.

  “Wow,” Grant said, looking at all those weapons. “Wow.” That’s all he could say. This stuff was worth a fortune, but it wasn’t the money Grant was thinking about. Grant blurted out his first thought, “We can outfit a lot of guys with this shit. A lot of them.”

  Chip grinned and said, “Roger that. That’s the plan.”

  “What plan?” Grant asked.

  “You’ll see,” Chip said with another one of his smiles. He took off his reading glasses and put them back in his t-shirt pocket. He rocked back on his heels and said, “I’m sworn to secrecy for right now. Don’t worry, it’s all cool and legal. Well, not really legal but we’re not going to go on a crime spree,” he smiled and added with a grin, “unless you want to.”

  Grant thought he knew what the guns were for. It was on the path, the path of what he was doing and why he was put here. The path led to…it was too hard to believe, but he knew where it led. OK, society was melting down, he had this cabin, and now he had a basement full of guns. He also had a trusted friend with a plan, who had a friend who had even more friends and a bigger plan. It all made sense. To the extent something as insane as this could make sense.

  But, things were different now. It really did make perfect sense. The old Grant would have never thought this was normal. But, now, those stacks of guns and cases of ammo were the new normal. And he was damned lucky to have them there.

  “How do you want to secure this place?” Grant asked Chip. They talked for a few hours about the guard duty schedule, setting up noisemakers around the basement door, and other things to secure the cabin and the immediate area.

  The sun was coming up. Whoa. Was it morning already? In early May way up north in Washington State, the sun rose at about 5:30 a.m.

  “Care for some breakfast, my friend?” Grant asked Chip.

  “Sounds delightful,” Chip said. He was a thin guy and didn’t eat often. But when he ate, he really ate.

  From his frequent trips out to the cabin, which often included overnights, Grant had plenty of eggs and bacon. They fried up a big batch and talked about everything that had happened and how to hide out there. Grant was relieved to be talking to someone about how all the preparations they’d made were coming to fruition.

  While they were serving up breakfast, Chip asked, “Do you have any orange juice?” Chip always had orange juice with breakfast. He had some during the day, too, and always brought some to have in the little employee refrigerator at the gun store.

  “Nope, but I have a lot of beer,” Grant said. “Let’s kick off our outlaw lives with beer for breakfast.”

  Chip got a beer out of the refrigerator, held it up, and said, “Why the hell not?”

  This was kind of fun. Then Grant remembered that Lisa and the kids were back in the city. He had abandoned them. No, not really, he tried to…he kept running this loop through his mind of accusing himself of abandoning them and then justifying why he hadn’t.

  Chip noticed the immediate mood change in Grant. “What’s up?” Chip asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Grant said. He didn’t want to be a cry baby. Besides, Grant had a family (or at least used to). Chip didn’t. Grant had it better than Chip so he shouldn’t whine.

  “Just dealing with some shit,” Grant said. “Hey, let’s eat and then figure out how we’re going to do a bunch of stuff around here.”

  After talking for a while, Grant realized he’d been up all night. He was getting tired, but he was operating on adrenaline. He was crashing now that he didn’t have that adrenaline running through his body after the day’s events. All of a sudden, Grant hit a mental wall of exhaustion. He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  Chip saw it and said, “Take a nap. I’ve got the first watch.”

  All Grant could manage to mumble was, “Thanks, man.” He went into the master bedroom and fell asleep in his clothes, with his pistol belt on. He had never been this tired. He had never had a day like this.

  Chapter 52

  “He’s gone.”

  (May 6)

  When Grant left that night, Lisa heard the garage door go up and then back down. And then waited. She waited for it to go back up, meaning that Grant had turned around and come back. He would just leave for a minute and then return. He had done that a few times when they’d had really bad arguments.

  But, the garage door stayed quiet. First, for a minute, then a few minutes, and then all night. It was the longest night of Lisa’s life.

  She cried so hard that her ribs hurt. She had the worst migraine of her life. Everything normal was no longer normal. She wanted the normal back. The normal of Grant being in bed with her, the kids not crying, the neighborhood being safe, the world being peaceful.

  She looked at the clock. It was 3:20 a.m. She went downstairs to see if Grant was down there. Maybe he never left and was just sitting on the couch making her think that he left. She realized that was unlikely, but she was desperate.

  Grant wasn’t downstairs. She went into the garage to see if his car was there. His space was empty. It was real now. He actually left. In the space where his car belonged was a pile of food, a black square case, and green metal box. Those were the green Army boxes he put his gun stuff in. She looked at the sturdy shelf in the garage. It was empty. It used to have those green metal boxes—Grant called them “ammo cans”—stacked up and some big gun cases. They were gone. They looked like missing front teeth.

  Why did he leave bulk food? She could go to the grocery store and get things, so why did he do that? The big box of pancake mix—twenty-five pounds—wasn’t the same brand as the pancakes Cole liked. What was Grant thinking? Was he just running an errand for her by getting this stuff? But, he wasn’t getting the stuff they ate. What was wrong with him? He got it during the day and didn’t flip out after the shooting until the night. So he got this stuff when he was thinking clearly. Why didn’t he just go to the grocery store? What was wrong with him? Why was he acting so weird?

  Lisa went back into the house and turned on the TV. She needed some noise. The silence of the house was too quiet. It only reminded her of how empty the house had become.

  The news was on. Grant must have left it on that channel. She hated the news. But, when she started to see everything on the screen, she couldn’t change the channel. She felt herself enter a trancelike state.

  Things were going crazy on the news. There were suicide bombings in Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, and Des Moines, Iowa. Des Moines? What did they ever do to anyone?

  It appeared that China had caused the electrical grids in the West and on the East Coast to fail. The U.S. Government was denying it, but the news said that numerous sources “who wished to remain anonymous” were confirming it. They said that China could take down the power in any region of the country any time they wanted. Any time. Without warning. It was a computer thing. Lisa thought that the lines would need to be cut to lose electricity. There was a computer that controlled all this? That could be hacked? Who let that happen?

  The news kept getting worse. The stock market had crashed. Again. Actually, the stock futures market in overnight trading had crashed, which meant that the stock market would crash when it opened that morning. If it opened at all. They said that the stock market probably wouldn’t open in the morning. She started to think about their—well, now her—401(k). It was gone. All that work. Poof. Gone.

  The next story on the news was about California. LA was overtaken by riots. There were fires everywhere. Soldiers and police battling with crowds. Lots of people with guns shooting it out with each other and with police and soldiers. People were running wild on Rodeo Drive, smashing store windows and taking everything. Hollywood stars were leaving LA in their private jets.

  The government was tryin
g to do something about all this. The Vice President came on live, in the middle of the night, and said that the President was invoking some emergency powers and would get things back to normal. The military was called into their bases. The reserves and National Guard were called up. The Vice President said that all police and emergency personnel were supposed to report to their stations. He said that Congressional leaders had called him and told him the President could do whatever it took to restore order. Then he said that America had been through hard times and always come out of it stronger. The Vice President seemed very confident when he spoke. That’s because he actually believed it.

  Lisa tried to absorb all this bad news. Everything seemed to be out of control. Then she got mad at Grant.

  He knew this was coming and didn’t do anything. He didn’t insist that they come with him. He should have been more forceful. He should have just hugged her and they would be safe. One hug and they would be together. But he wouldn’t hug her. She hated Grant. For the first time in her life, she hated him.

  There was noise outside. People were talking and moving around. There was a loud knock at the door. She jumped. It was Ron. He wanted to talk to Grant about the shootings.

  “He’s gone,” Lisa said. “Went to the cabin. Without us.” She didn’t want to admit it.

  “What cabin? Whose cabin?” Ron asked. Lisa realized that Ron didn’t know about the cabin; Grant had always been weird about not telling too many people about the cabin. She realized she shouldn’t tell people about the cabin in case they wanted to go get Grant for the shooting.

  “Oh, a friend’s cabin,” Lisa said. “Down in Lewis County. I don’t know where exactly,” she said, wishing that she didn’t have to lie to her neighbors. But that asshole Grant was making her.

  Ron said some more things, but Lisa couldn’t really hear him. She couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying; she was in a daze until he left.

  Maybe she should take Manda and Cole to the cabin? No, that would be crazy.